


Hubris Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

by witchlips



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: AU, Clones, F/M, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, brusty, docbrock, obvious reasons, the major death warning is for the boys cause uh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-03-06 00:39:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13399722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchlips/pseuds/witchlips
Summary: An AU in which Rusty takes Brock's DNA while they're in college and ends up mixing it with his own later to create Hank and Dean.This will be Brock x Rusty further in to the story, but it's definitely gonna be a slow build, multi-chapter type thing.





	1. Prologue: Origins

**Author's Note:**

> I could not for the life of me get this idea out of my head, so I suppose I'm writing this now. lol
> 
> Should update every Saturday, but it may do so more frequently when I can make it happen. This chapter is the Prologue. The next update will enter the story proper and will be considerably longer.

Rusty hadn’t really known what had possessed him to do it at the time. Later, after he had made the boys with it, he told himself that the man was a specimen! What kind of scientist would let that kind of god-like DNA get away without some sampling?

 

He never told his roommate that he took a sample for experimentation from the man’s dirty laundry while he was out. It would not have been likely that Samson would take it well, and quite honestly, the man was as terrifying as he was beautiful. Rusty had also… _incorrectly_ assumed that it was unlikely he’d see Samson again after college. Hindsight sure was a funny thing. 

 

Rusty had kept the DNA for a good while after that. Some couple years in fact, before he finally met Ben, one of his father’s allies and the only other human being who knew about the genetic experiments Jonas Venture had been working on.

 

During odd periods of time he needed to escape the stifling attentions of Myra, who was becoming more unhinged and obsessed with him by the day. Those days Rusty would come down to Ben’s home, hidden on the property, and have the man help him tweak a mixture of Samson’s DNA and Rusty’s own until they were both sure that it might make a full human being. The project was consuming, and Rusty could honestly never remember feeling so passionate; so intensely focused on the results of his experimentation in all his life.

 

Then the breakthrough he’d been waiting for finally happened. Rusty and Ben had finally figured out how to get the DNA to fit together, and it successfully took to the artificial womb they had grown from a graft of Rusty’s skin.

 

The egg having took only made the former boy-adventurer even more passionate about the project. He knew his ducking out was only making Myra’s twitchy, and controlling behavior worse, but the fleeting thought of how she might react when she found out he’d made his children was enough to keep Rusty secretive. In hindsight, yet again, that had probably not helped the situation in the slightest.

 

He still remembered the shock he’d been hit with when Ben told him there were two of them. Two _boys_ , in fact. He was surprised, and giddy. Two boys made of a genetic mixture of Rusty’s intelligence, and Samson’s impressive physical make up. They’d be prodigies!

 

Months flew by, and suddenly the twins were almost finished growing within the womb. Rusty was faced with a choice then. At this point, Rusty knew Myra had lost most of her grip on reality. It had become easy to convince her of the oddest things, and so the solution had seemed obvious. It would be a simple enough task to convince the woman that she was the boys' mother, especially since she shared a few coloring similarities and physical markers with Hank, thanks to Samson’s half of the DNA.

 

The day the boys were born was the most magical day of his life. They were easily Rusty’s most successful experiment at the time, maybe even ever. The former boy-adventurer insisted on removing them from the artificial womb himself, practically shoving Ben out of the way when the display blared to inform them of the change with his scalpel in hand.

 

Hank fought his way out first, and Rusty could already tell from day one that the boy had taken after Samson the most. His soft blond hair, and thicker build spoke to it even as an infant. Dean was next, weaker and thinner than his brother, but still beautiful as far as Rusty was concerned. The younger twin had certainly taken after the Venture side of things with his ginger hair and slightly longer limbs.

 

Rusty managed to convince Myra that very day that she was the boys’ mother, and so got to bring them both home to the compound with him immediately. He had been more thankful for that than he’d ever been for anything in his entire life. He had been so completely unwilling to let them out of his sight for even a moment. They had seemed like an incredible success after such a long drought of only failures.

 

Then things became suddenly much, much worse than they had been. Myra had reached some point of no return before the boys were even a few months old, and after a particularly harrowing experience culminating in the complete break down of her mental facilities, an attempt to burn down the compound with Rusty and the boys inside, and a very frantic call to the OSI; Myra was taken away.

 

Rusty vividly remembered the day, standing on the front steps of the Venture compound and listening to her crazed cooing and yells as she was carted off. He remembered shaking entirely too much from underneath a very heavy blanket that was doing very little to calm his nerves, and cutting himself off mid-retort because a very large, very familiar shape was suddenly on his lawn. A terrifying shape in the face of the life he had created, as far as he was currently concerned.

 

Brock Samson had been assigned as Rusty’s new bodyguard, and suddenly the scientist had some new decisions to make.


	2. New Bodyguard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rusty tells Brock. Brock is... irritated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch and kind of an early post (Yay!). Poor Brock.

“So, uh... Doctor Venture,” Brock rumbled out in irritation as he pulled the packet of OSI paperwork and a pen from his duffle bag. The blond dropped both things down on the coffee table between him and the scientist, “I need some information from you about this job. Myra was too far gone to keep current records, apparently.”

 

Brock eyed the two pink-nosed babies sleeping in Venture’s thin arms. He couldn’t deny he was a little annoyed that he hadn’t been told there would be children involved. The packet he had been given only had two pages worth of sporadic information from Brandish’s first year or so, and absolutely no mention of children.

 

“She didn’t… she didn’t mention the boys?” Venture asked quietly, visibly shuddering a little, “That’s weird… She was kind of… obsessed with them. With us.”

 

Brock grunted and shifted his attention from the sleeping babies to the smaller man. Venture was obviously still in shock, shaking just slightly and rubbing his long, thin fingers almost obsessively over the babies’ blankets. The man’s skin was almost grey, it was so pale, and he refused to make any eye contact whatsoever. Venture reminded Brock of a neurotic chihuahua that lived down the road from him when he was a child in his current state.

 

“You gonna be okay to do this right now, or should I save the questions for tomorrow?” He asked, more out of a recognition of mutual exhaustion than anything else. Brock really just wanted to find his room, secure the compound, and get settled in.

 

“I… what kind of… questions are they?” The scientist almost whispered. Brock frowned and narrowed his eyes as the smaller man shifted uneasily on the muted orange couch. Something was up. The OSI agent could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck in warning, and he was definitely not in the mood to deal with something more insane than Myra’s arrest first thing after he arrived.

 

“Shouldn’t be anything too bad,” Brock replied warily, “Mostly about the compound recently, and the family. Myra didn’t tell anyone you had… children. There’s no information on them at all.”

 

“I-I…” Venture stammered and swallowed loudly, doing his utmost best not to look Brock in the eye. The apprehension prickling at Brock’s neck picked up to an unbearable level, setting him on edge, “What about them?”

 

“...You’re not about to tell me you kidnapped them with her help or something, are you?” The blond asked, scowling and crossing his arms over his chest. The little scientist scoffed and chuckled mirthlessly as he shook his head.

 

“No, I… What do you need to know?”

 

Brock sighed and pulled out one of the report forms to look over what he needed, “Ah... their names? Ages?”

 

“Hank is the blond, Dean is the ginger,” Venture sighed, “They’re three months old as of two weeks ago.”

 

The Swede scribbled down that information while he asked the next question, “Who’s their mother? Brandish?”

 

“I… No,” The scientist mumbled. Brock looked up questioningly, pen poised over the report and ready to write down whatever the man was about to tell him. Venture remained silent, however, staring despondently at the floor.

 

“ _Doc_ ,” Brock barked a little harsher than he had meant to. The doctor jumped a little, looking up at his new bodyguard uneasily, and making the larger man sigh in frustration, “Their mother, Doc?”

 

“...Well, I guess, I am, technically,” Venture told him finally. Brock’s scowl returned, this time more from puzzlement and suspicion than anything else. The slight scientist still refused to look the blond in the eye, instead turning his attention on tightening the soft white blanket swaddling the ginger haired twin.

 

“You… are their _mother_?” Brock asked incredulously, “I thought you were a-”

 

“I _am_ male. I didn’t carry them inside me,” Venture snorted, and finally looked up. His sharp blue-grey eyes seemed to gleam strangely with something like pride, “I made what was basically an artificial womb from a skin graft. They gestated in a tube.”

 

Brock just stared for a moment, trying desperately to make sense of that information to no avail.

 

“Why the hell would you do that?”

 

Venture shrugged, “I wanted to see if I could. I’ve been working on cloning them just in case the last few months. That part is much more simple. The hard part is proving to be figuring out how to keep their consciousness alive without their bodies temporarily… can’t really test that unless they die, see? I’d rather keep that from happening as long as possible.”

 

The Swede sighed, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands before sitting back and going back to the paperwork with a shake of his head, “I suppose you’re the father, too?”

 

“Don’t be stupid. Then they’d only have my DNA. They would have just been clones from the beginning,” Venture scoffed. The thin man frowned down at the blond haired twin, and sighed, “I suppose I should get this out of the way as quickly as possible. If anyone has the right to know, I guess it’s you.”

 

“...What? Get to your point, man,” Brock rumbled, reaching the peak of his patience for this nonsense. The doctor didn’t answer immediately, much to the bodyguard’s frustration. Instead, he stood up, crossed the expanse of the living room and sat down uncomfortably close to Brock.

 

“I, uhm… here, hold Hank,” The man said as he held out the larger blond baby. Reluctantly, Brock did as asked, taking the baby in an awkward cradle that made the child squirm in his sleep. Venture shifted the smaller one around in his own arms and cleared his throat, “Like this. You have to support his head. They can hold them up when they’re awake, but it still takes conscious effort, and they’re kind of wobbly.”

 

The giant Swede followed the scientist’s instructions with a frown, this time moving just a bit too much and causing the baby to yawn and squirm some more. Big blue eyes blinked open slowly, and the child grinned a sleepy, toothless grin up at Brock. Something about the kid was niggling the back of this mind. There were familiar features on his face that weren’t just from Dr. Venture, and he couldn’t seem to place them.

 

“Do you remember…” Started Venture quietly, “Being my roommate in college?”

 

“Vaguely,” Brock answered absently, still scowling down at the baby and trying to figure out where he’d seen that eye shape and color before. Maybe it was someone he’d known in college since the scientist was bringing that up out of the blue, “We were on different schedules, and you were older.”

 

“Right,” Venture sighed. There was a rattling sound that caused Brock to finally look away from the baby only to watch the doctor remove a small white pill from a little plastic box and pop it into his mouth. His hands were shaking, as he replaced the box in his chest pocket, “Look… don’t kill me, alright?”

 

That apprehensive feeling Brock had been overly aware of since he started this conversation roared to a peak. Something was incredibly wrong here. Something he was going to be very very irritated about.

 

“It’s my job to keep you alive,” Brock told the other man gruffly, “Tell me who the ‘father’ is so I can finish this and get on with that job.”

 

Venture nodded down at the baby the bodyguard was holding, “You can tell most in Hank, there. The blonde hair, his eyes, the bigger build. He already looks a lot like… well… a Samson, I guess.”

 

Brock felt every muscle in his body tense at the same time. The scientist was still babbling on beside him, but the man’s words had ceased to make any real sense as something akin to horror mixed with an unbelievable rage mixed together in the bodyguard’s mind. He had to take several great inhales in order to even begin to think straight, and by the time he had finished and managed to push down the instinct to murder, Venture was beginning to wind down his prattling.

 

“-and I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see you again, so I didn’t think it’d matter at all to just take some of your DNA for later use. I mean, it was in the room just waiting for experimentation, and how could I resist _that_? Of course, my luck _would_ land you as my new bodyguard-,” the scientist was saying in a rush of breath.

 

“Shut up,” Brock ordered tonelessly. Venture’s mouth snapped shut immediately, and the smaller man curled around the other baby… Dean, almost protectively. The Swede looked down at Hank, who had removed his arm from the tight swaddling and was chewing on his little knuckles, making gurgling noises that were very close to growls.

 

Brock sighed, shook his head, and offered Hank to Venture. This might as well happen, along with all the other shit that went down today. The scientist took the baby and Brock leaned down to the coffee table, scratching out where he had written Venture’s name as the mother, “I’m going to say it was a mistake and put Myra as their mother and you as the father. We are not telling anyone else this information. Understood?”

 

“I… Yes.”

 

“Good,” Brock grumbled, putting away the paperwork inside the packet and standing up with the singular need to do anything but finish filling it out right now, "We'll complete the paperwork tomorrow. Show me the compound."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone buy this man a drink or seven.


	3. Forging Bonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock becomes a little attached. He refuses to admit it. Naturally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:  
> This chapter includes a little bit about teething. If that squicks ya, you could skip from "Brock hummed in reply" in the second half to "Rusty grimaced and looked down at Dean".  
> And secondly... I'm not 100% sure how well this was edited, so I apologize. It'll probably be re-checked in a bit, so. **EDIT: This has been edited correctly and update. Sorry for the wait.**

“Why are you doing this?”

 

Rusty stopped between two Hank slugs, mid-speech, his hand risen in a pointed gesture. The smug smirk on his face became strained and less confident as he turned around to look at his massive new bodyguard in the greenish half-light of the cloning lab, “Doing what?”

 

Samson narrowed his eyes and looked pointedly at the Hank-slug to Rusty’s left, “This… cloning thing.”

 

Rusty’s smirk disappeared altogether, and he dropped his hand to the side. The scientist folded his arms across his chest, enclosing the clipboard he had been holding in a tight embrace, “Look… _Brock_. Can I call you Brock?”

 

The blond man grunted and Rusty took it as acquiescence regardless of whether it actually was or not.

 

“Brock, my father was a lot of horrible, shitty things… but he wasn’t _stupid_ ,” Rusty sneered, gripping the clipboard so tightly it was uncomfortable, “He knew this life wasn’t one that you could raise a child in without some… _unfortunate_ hiccups. This is the answer, _my answer_ , to a lot of those hiccups. We shouldn’t have much trouble while they’re infants because of some GCI laws, but as soon as they’re school age the villains will be coming out of the woodwork again.”

 

“You trying to tell me that you’re a clone?” Brock scowled, pulling another cigarette out and putting it in his mouth without lighting it.

 

“ _God_ , no,” Rusty laughed mirthlessly, unfolding his arms and walking toward the door of the cloning facility, “I could only be so lucky. I said it's _my_ answer. My father had his own deeply flawed way of dealing with it.”

 

Almost silent footsteps falling behind the scientist assured him that Brock was following from the room and out into the rest of the compound. The other man was totally silent until they had reached the door to the lab and walked into the bright sunlight.

 

The metallic clicking of the Swede’s lighter was what made Rusty stop and turn around. Brock had stopped right outside the door and leaned back against the sun-warmed wall of the building they had just left. The other man glared speculatively as he took a drag from his cigarette. In his ever level voice, he asked, “So you don’t trust me to do my job?”

 

“Try not to take offense at this,” Rusty glared back and put a hand on one of his hips, “But I’ve not seen you since college, and I didn’t really know you well then. I was taking this precaution from the beginning, when I thought I might be stuck with Myra. There are a lot of things I’ll take a gamble with, but the lives of my boys are not one of them.”

 

Brock took another long drag and looked up at the fluffy white clouds trailing lazily in the blue sky, “Not knowing me well didn’t seem to stop you from stealing my DNA.”

 

“That was _-_ that was _different_!” Rusty sputtered indignantly, “I spent a lot of time looking over it before I decided it could be used with mine successfully! The boys were made without any need for trust in someone else because I could completely rely on _myself_ to make sure they came out like they were supposed to no matter whose DNA I had decided to use in their creation. I wasn’t going to involve you in any way! I wouldn’t have at all if it weren’t for… well…”

 

He gestured lamely in the direction of the very illegal cloning lab with the hand still holding his clipboard.

 

“You just weren’t gonna ever tell ‘em who their other parent was?” Brock asked, raising a thick eyebrow in the scientist’s direction. There was just a hint of a smirk playing on the man’s mouth, as if he found the concept entertaining for one reason or another.

 

“Well… no. I mean, I still don't plan to if you don’t want to be, uh…” Rusty trailed off. Brock just stared neutrally back until the scientist became uncomfortable and cleared his throat nervously, "...Involved."

 

“Can't say that sounds appealing, doc.”

 

“I didn’t know who my mother was. I was fine,” Rusty shrugged uneasily and brought up his clipboard in order to cut off the conversation. This was becoming a very tedious exchange. He narrowed his eyes at what was left for them to comb over before the bodyguard was satisfied with the security of the compound, not really seeing the words. 

 

“Yeah, you're a model human being,” The other man scoffed, pushing off the wall and heading across the lawn and toward the main hangar, “Come on. Let’s finish this already, doc.”

 

Rusty watched the man swagger off in a way that was most certainly _not_ attractive for a bit before he fished out his pillbox and dry swallowed a diet pill. He quickly replaced the pill box in his pocket, and resigned himself to following after Brock, feet dragging a bit.

 

_Just wonderful._ A bodyguard with a sadistic sense of humor who just so happened to be the unwilling “father” of his children. This really was just his luck. Stupid OSI. Who was in charge of assigning his bodyguards anyway? Maybe he could file a complaint or something.

 

* * *

 

It took a couple weeks of Brock being asked tentatively to do things for the babies before he felt any kind of real interest in them. He had felt largely ambivalent; irritated that their existence was partly because of his stolen DNA and that they had been sprung on him in the most ridiculous way, but curious despite himself. Well, until the night Hank and Dean both began cutting teeth at the same time, anyway.

 

Brock had been restlessly laying in bed for hours before he finally threw off his blankets and decided to go check on the sounds of infants wailing that echoed down the hallway. He turned the knob of the nursery door all the way over and opened it slowly so it wouldn’t make a sound. Through the crack in the door he watched Rusty Venture, dressed in a crumpled Venture blue bathrobe, tiredly rock in the rocking chair as both babies cried pitifully in each of his arms. The smaller man looked over from his half lidded staring at the wall and frowned at Brock.

 

“I’m sorry,” Rusty slurred tiredly, “I’ve tried… everything, but they just…”

 

“Do you… want some help?” Brock asked before he could stop himself. The scientist seemed as confused as he did by the offer, scowling in puzzlement for a moment as Brock opened the door a little more and moved closer.

 

“ _Really_...?” the tone of Rusty’s voice seemed to interject some kind of seriousness into the conversation that hadn’t been there when Brock spoke. The smaller man lost a bit of the sleepiness in his expression as he sat forward interestedly.

 

“Yeah,” the bodyguard replied without any hesitation. Somewhere in the back of his head, Brock cursed himself even as he stepped further in and shut the door, “I won’t be able to sleep ‘till they do anyway.”

 

“That’s... logical,” Rusty mumbled almost sarcastically as he offered up Hank. A small frown worked its way onto the man’s face, but Brock ignored it in favor of taking the crying blond baby carefully into his arms.

 

His hold was still a little awkward, but Hank was much too distracted by his current plight to care about that. The baby’s round face was pink from his screaming efforts, and fat, hot tears ran down his soft cheeks every now and again. When he didn’t scream the baby snuffled pathetically. There was a twinge of pain in Brock’s stomach for some reason he couldn't quite place as he tried to quiet Hank with soft spoken words that didn’t come naturally, and gentle but graceless rocking.

 

“What’s wrong with them anyway?” Brock asked a few minutes in.

 

“They’re getting their first tooth. From what I understand it hurts,” Rusty mumbled back, his eyes completely shut as he continued to rock Dean ineffectually in the chair.

 

“Like an ache?” He questioned the scientist.

 

Rusty’s eyes opened, a look of exhausted confusion on his face, “I… I guess?”

 

Brock hummed in reply before looking back down at the crying baby. Hank’s mouth was wide open, showing off the irritated gums easily. It really did look like it hurt. Poor kid. Acting on some kind of instinct, Brock stuck the pinky finger of his free hand in the baby’s mouth and rubbed his gums gently. At first Hank looked offended, but after a few minutes the baby took a couple of shuddering breaths around the digit, his face finally beginning to relax into sleep.

 

“What did you-? Is that your _finger_!?”

 

“Shhh!” Brock looked up with a scowl, but continued to rub at Hank’s inflamed gums. He whispered harshly back at the disgusted looking man, “You said it was an ache. Massaging helps aches, doc.”

 

Rusty grimaced and looked down at Dean, who was still crying piteously in his arms. Brock watched as the scientist sighed heavily and seemed to brace himself before following his bodyguard’s lead with less reluctance than he had originally put on. What a drama queen.

 

It was only ten minutes or so before the twins were fast asleep in their beds and they were both sneaking out behind the other side of the door. Rusty turned to Brock with a sly grin as soon as the latch clicked shut.

 

“I thought it didn’t ‘ _seem appealing’_?” The scrawny scientist had the nerve to taunt.

 

“If you think staying up stupidly late into the night and being yelled at by someone one-sixteenth your size is appealing, you have more screws loose than I’d thought, doc,” Brock grumbled in annoyance as he started off down the hall.

 

Cool, long fingers grabbed a hold of his forearm before he could more than a few steps away.

 

“Wait, I…” Brock looked over his shoulder with a grim frown, trying to fight down his instinct to slug the man for grabbing him when his back was turned. Rusty took a shaky breath and nervously fiddled with the edge of his robe. He looked even smaller than he normally did in that moment somehow, and it gave Brock a weird feeling in his gut, “I’m bad at this. Just… I wanted to say thank you. H.E.L.P.eR isn’t great at dealing with babies, and-”

 

“I needed to sleep, too,” Brock reiterated, cutting him off before he could start on some kind of sappy rant. If it came out softer than normal, he blamed that on having to whisper at Hank for half an hour.

 

Pointedly, the blond removed his arm from the scientist’s grip and continued on the way back to his room. He tried to ignore the weird tingling Rusty’s cold fingers left behind as he climbed back into bed. Instead, he tossed and turned for another couple of hours alone in the dark trying to think of what the man could have possibly handled in his lab to make it do that.


	4. Reaching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock makes Rusty think and it's scary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A whole lotta nothing happens in this chapter. It's pretty fluffy, but that's good because I'm about to dive into the angst. I apologize in advance.
> 
> I tried to make sure I didn't switch tenses, but sometimes I miss them. Sorry 'bout it.

Rusty woke a couple of days later to sounds of delighted screeching echoing through the baby monitors. The clock on his bedside read 7:23 AM, much later than the boys usually woke him up and a small mercy as far as he was concerned.

 

It took a minute or so of staring at the dimly lit ceiling to gather enough energy to roll out of his soft, warm bed, but he managed it with minimal cursing. After he slid his glasses on and located his robe on the floor, Rusty shuffled out into the hall and down to the next door.

 

It was cracked open a bit, morning light filtered into the hall along with the soft giggles of Hank and Dean. They weren’t normally so happy in the morning. Perhaps H.E.L.P.eR. had made it inside?

 

He pushed open the door and took a step in only to stop as his eyes widened in surprise. It had not been the blue robot he had expected. Instead, Brock was within, laid out on his back across the soft nursery carpet with Hank and Dean rested against his wide chest. A small smile pulled at the corner of giant man’s mouth as Dean’s pudgy little hand reached clumsily for his chin. The baby scrunched up his nose and squealed at the scratchy feeling of the skin there.

 

“Yeah, I know. Need to shave,” Sampson chuffed gently, “I’ll get it when your dad gets his ass up.”

 

Rusty watched silently for another minute before he found it within himself to clear his throat. Brock stiffened for just a moment, frowned, and then sat up with both babies clutched close. The small smile had disappeared off the man’s face and it made Rusty feel weirdly heavy in his chest.

 

“I didn’t mean to sleep in,” Rusty frowned and fiddled with the hem of his robe. God, he hadn’t been this nervous in front of another man in his entire life, “You could have woken me up. You didn’t have to… get up with them.”

 

“I know,” Brock’s brow furrowed a little bit like he was frustrated, “I was up anyway.”

 

The unspoken, “I  _ wanted _ to,” hung heavy in the air for what felt like forever before Rusty cleared his throat again and nodded awkwardly.

 

“Right, well. I’m up now, so I can take them to eat breakfast if you’d like to go… shave,” He suggested, eager to get rid of the tension that had somehow seeped into the room.

 

Brock frowned, but stood up carefully and came within reaching distance. He looked down at the boys and tightened his grip on them just a little bit. The twins turned up wide, curious eyes at the man, and the corners of his mouth twitched up again ever so slightly.

 

“I’ll be right back, boys,” He rumbled softly. Brock finally looked up then, though he still didn’t make any eye contact with Rusty, and handed the babies over, “Be down in a second.”

 

With that mumbled parting, the man slid around the little family and out the door, taking that odd tension with him. Rusty sighed and made sure he closed the door to the nursery as he followed the man out on his way to the kitchen.

 

“I can never read that guy,” he grumbled under his breath, lifting the boys up a little higher so he could look them in their chubby little faces, “What do you guys think? Does he like us?”

 

Hank growled and shoved his fist into his mouth to chew on, and Rusty nodded in mock understanding.

 

“You’re right, Hank. He obviously doesn’t like _me_ ,” Rusty rambled on as they passed into the kitchen. He set them both down a little precariously in their highchairs and stood back to look at them with his hands on his hips, “I think _you_ _two_ have managed to grow on him, though. What about you, Dean?”

 

Dean squealed loudly, setting both babies off into a round of semi-hysterical giggles. Rusty shook his head and huffed petulantly as he turned to rifle through the pantry for their formula and the coffee grounds for himself.

 

“Whatever. Nothing I’m not used to,” he grumbled under his breath while he got to work. The formula was readied quickly and placed in the hands of ravenous infants only moments later, “Time for breakfast, you tiny reprobates.”

 

“You gotta call ‘em names like that?”

 

Rusty turned to watch Brock lumber into the kitchen all freshly shaven and cleaned up. Heat prickled across the tips of Rusty’s ears as the man came closer into the room. For once he was glad Brock seemed to only have attention for the babies.

 

“It’s  _ meant _ affectionately,” He replied just a touch more defensive than he had wished and the heat rose across Rusty’s cheeks as well for an entirely different reason.

 

Brock snorted but finally managed to tear his eyes away from the kids. He looked Rusty’s face over pointedly, obviously noticing the blush that Rusty was sure was only getting darker. God, he hoped Brock thought it was all embarrassment.

 

“Yeah, sure, Doc. Whatever you say. You had breakfast?”

 

“I-,” Rusty blinked quickly and shook his head just a little confused at the topic change, “Ah, no. I was just about to start the coffee, actually.”

 

“Good. You do that. I’ll make us something,” Brock yawned into the crook of his arm and swaggered off to the refrigerator. Rusty just stared uncomprehendingly at the man’s back as the muscles under his tight black shirt shifted while he grabbed things. 

 

How weird… Brock had been here weeks now, and seemed content with eating before Rusty and the boys even got up for the day. Even on the few days he’d eaten in the same room at the same time, Brock had made sure he ate further away from them, and he most certainly had never let Rusty make him anything, or suggested making something for Rusty himself. Maybe he had rethought his stance on minimal contact?

 

Rusty shook his head and went about making coffee for the two of them in any case. He sat on a chair tucked against the bar in front of the sink once the machine started, and surreptitiously snuck glances every now and then to keep track of Brock as he shifted around the stove.

 

Just as Rusty was debating running back to his room for his diet pills, a heaping plate of cheesy eggs, bacon, and toast was deposited gently in front of him.

 

“It’s more than you normally eat, I know,” Brock grumbled as he sat down heavily beside Rusty with his own plate, “But you don’t eat enough.”

 

Rusty snorted, but picked up his fork anyway, “I have to watch my girlish figure.”

 

“Who told you that?” The blond man huffed. Rusty looked up in time to see a smirk disappear as Brock stuffed a fork full of eggs into his mouth.

 

A little flustered, he let the truth blurt right out of his mouth, “My dad.”

 

Brock looked up from his plate, an eyebrow raised in disbelief, “You serious?”

 

“I… Yeah,” Rusty turned back to his food to escape Brock’s serious gaze and pushed his own eggs around the plate, fully expecting the discussion to be pushed off, and honestly extremely embarrassed he had said it out loud in the first place, “For the… for the show and all.”

 

Instead of any of that, he received, “Your dad sounds like he was an ass.”

 

So who could blame him if he choked on the egg he’d put into his mouth until Brock had to slam one of his large hands into his thin back?

 

Certainly not Brock, who only grinned once Rusty caught his breath and continued on as if nothing had happened at all.

 

Maybe this situation wasn’t quite as unworkable as he had originally thought.


End file.
